As reported by Search Engine Watch yesterday, Google will no longer be showing ads on the right hand side of its search results pages.

This change began on 19 February, and now many search results pages are looking a little bare:

Google will now just show ads at the top and bottom of search results page. However, it may increase the number of top ads from three to four if the search query is ‘highly commercial.’

In other words, Google is likely to compensate for the lack of right hand side ads by increasing the number of top paid ads for competitive terms.

Dr Pete Myers at Moz has been tracking the changes to ads, and we can see that Google has been testing SERPs with 4 ads on top for some months, before finally making the big change.

Here’s an example from a search on Google UK today:

Of course, the big effect will be that the organic results face a further squeeze. Already, being able to view organic results above the fold for product searches is becoming rarer. This will accelerate the process.

In some verticals, such as travel and insurance, where Google has its own comparison products, organic visibility is even worse.

There are exceptions, a couple of search types where the right hand side will be used.